


Sometimes Life is Hardest when Nothing is Happening

by Rynfinity



Series: The March of the Damned [9]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Deep down, do you believe Thor cares about you," his therapist asks.</p><p>Loki does.  It isn't that.  He nods, because he feels uncomfortably choked up and doesn't dare talk all of a sudden.  </p><p>"And if you ask him for something you need," she contines, "does he care about you less?"</p><p> </p><p>This is a direct sequel to <i>As Virtues Go, Chastity is Overrated</i> and will make the most sense read after its predecessors. </p><p>This story takes place in the same AU as, and in the timeframe between, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1374013/chapters/2874226">Reach</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1398445/chapters/2931115">Pull</a> from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/104813">Out of the Mouths of Babes</a>; unlike the Babes stories, this one is told from Loki's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If discussions in therapy were easy, Loki probably wouldn't need to be there in the first place.

"I'm looking back through your file," Leah - because Loki's therapist does have a name, and he should probably be using it - says, pushing her glasses back into position with one thumb, "and I’m picking up on a bit of an historical trend here. Can we talk about it?"

 _Not a great weekend,_ she'd observed when he'd first walked in. It hadn't been, of course, but he also hadn't been planning on discussing it with anyone. Not yet, anyway, and maybe not at all.

So much for that.

There isn't a clear way of avoiding the topic, whatever exactly it might be, and he knows Leah well enough by now to know she'll just keep after him about it anyway. On and on, until he gives in. Which simultaneously manages to be what he most appreciates and most hates about her. Loki sighs, but it comes out more like an offended little huff. "I'd rather not," he tells her, "but that isn't going to get me out of it, I suspect."

Leah smiles. "Not forever, no. I'm here to help you reach your goals, after all, not to help you find creative ways to avoid facing the things preventing you from achieving them." She laughs at his rueful expression. "If for no other reason than this: That's the _last_ thing you need my help doing."

He smiles, too, by reflex. She isn't wrong, is she?

Still, awesome. His _goals_. How charming. "Might as well get it over with, then," he says, even though he'd kind of rather leave. He slides down in his chair, knees wide apart and one foot wiggling. "Shoot."

She flips a couple of pages. "You've told me before that your partner is no longer hitting you; that he really hasn't since you came home." She searches his face. "Is that still the case?"

"Yes," he's quick to assure her. He knows he's borderline (hah, in so, so many ways, and isn't _that_ just fucking hilarious?) _not competent_ , and he for sure doesn't want or need anyone stepping in and trying to _re-home_ him. Plus, he _is_ telling the truth. "Thor hasn't done anything – hasn’t lifted a hand against me in anger - in ages now.”

She cocks an eyebrow, but Loki doesn’t give her a chance to cut in. “That one time,” he goes on, “the one where I left, he grabbed me… but even then I don’t think he was really trying to hurt me. And, either way, we've already talked about that" - which is equally accurate under either definition of _we_ ; he'd discussed it with Thor, which is in itself a rarity, and he'd talked the whole sordid mess through with Leah as well.... it seems a person can't come into the day center in loaner slippers without raising some eyebrows, not to mention setting off all kinds of alarms, and although he'd pretty much dodged _therapeutic input_ that first day she'd still managed to catch up with him about it eventually - "and there hasn't been any repeat."

"And yet everything is not exactly peachy keen," Leah observes drily.

She's definitely growing on him, despite comments like that, so he lets it go. "It's good enough," Loki lies, looking at his hands.

"Good enough for- what, exactly?" He can hear in Leah's voice that she's calling _bullshit_ and, sure enough, when he sneaks a quick look at her face she's oh-so-clearly not buying a single bit of the shit he's selling.

"Okay, fine." He gives up. "It's not so awesome." He lets his head loll to one side, so he's looking lopsidedly at the bookcase. "I mean, it's not terrible or anything; we just don't seem to be finding a new balance."

"How so," she asks.

If only he knew. "I can't stop starting up with him," Loki tells her. "I'm- I get bored when he's too nice. I get bored when _anyone_ is too nice.” It’s only fair; this particular problem is not Thor-centric. “So I act like an ass,” he explains, “and Thor gets pissed... and what ensues used to make me feel better. These days, unfortunately, it doesn't."

Leah nods. "Do you want to break things off with him," she asks, calm and normal, like it's any old question.

"Oh, _fuck_ , no," he exclaims, almost before she's done asking. He doesn't need to think about _that_ at all. "Never! I just want things to be- better."

"That doesn’t seem unreasonable," she says, smiling a little at his over-enthusiastic response. "Have you tried talking with him about what’s bothering you? Seeing how he feels, what he thinks?"

Loki snorts. "We don't talk."

"Ever?" She grins, sharply. "You'll have to forgive me but, even having only known you a short while, I find that just a _little_ hard to believe."

He rolls his eyes at her. "Fine," he huffs. "We don't talk about important things."

"What happens if you try," she asks, ignoring his bratty attitude like it's not even there. "Are you able to make any headway?"

He drops the act; it clearly isn't working, not today, and that means it's not worth the effort of sustaining. "I don't know. I don't try. I don’t _want_ to try. When I crave something, I need to feel like- like it's Thor's idea. If I have to ask for it... for whatever... I don't feel like what I get back is _genuine_ , you know?" What Loki actually feels right this very second is _sad_ , a lot more sad than it seems like he ought to. Ridiculously sad, even. This is just a stupid little thing.

"Deep down, do you believe Thor cares about you," Leah asks, quietly.

Loki does. It isn't that. He nods, because he feels uncomfortably choked up and doesn't dare talk all of a sudden. Which, yes, is also stupid.

"And if you ask him for something you need, do you think that somehow makes him care about you less?"

"I don't know." That's not quite true; Thor likes to be helpful, in most any situation. When it comes right down to it he’d probably actually appreciate a little more guidance from Loki, in terms of what Loki does and doesn't need. "I just feel like, if he really loved me, he would know how to give me what I need." That, and asking makes him hate himself _more_.

"If he loved you?" She doesn't say it like she's chastising him, but it smarts all the same.

"Okay, no, no. You're right," he tells her, voice wavering. He's going to cry here after all, damn it all to hell. "I know he loves me. But if he was _paying any attention to me_ , I wouldn't have to ask for what I need." That’s really more what he’s been trying to say. A tear trickles down his cheek; he resolutely pretends it isn’t there.

"Think about a time when you did have to ask him," Leah instructs. "For anything. It doesn’t have to be something big and grand,” she clarifies. “Let me know when you've got it fixed in your mind." He ponders for a moment, then inclines his head as directed. "What are you feeling," she asks him.

He takes a shuddery breath. "Sad. Overlooked." He wipes at his overflowing eyes, annoyed with himself for being so fucking _weak_. "I feel invisible."

"Does this feeling, this sense of invisibility, seem _recent_ to you?"

Loki knows what she means; she's explained how this exercise works before. He soaks in it for a minute, wiping his eyes again. "No," he says at last. "It doesn't."

"Can you remember a time, long ago, when you felt this same way?"

He can. It bubbles up, sudden and clear and shockingly painful. He nods. "I was-,” he starts in, not even waiting for her to prompt him, “oh, I don't know... a toddler. Maybe three? I could walk and talk and scream. Kind of like now," he interjects, trying in vain to ease the awful tension with a little humor. "My mother- Frigga, I mean, she's not actually my mother," he feels like he has to explain, yet again, even though that part has no relevance to the story whatsoever, "Frigga went- she went out to the car to get something, I think she told me. I tried to follow her, I guess - she called me her little duckling,” he tells Leah sadly, “because apparently I followed her everywhere - and I got my fingers shut in the hinge side of the door."

He wipes his face on his shirt this time. Leah pushes the closest box of tissues towards him. "It hurt so, so bad," Loki goes on. He cradles his right hand gently in his left, still cringing all these years – all these _decades_ \- later. And the worst part wasn’t even the pain; it was the abandonment, the sense of betrayal. "Of course, she didn't even know it had happened; she was outside. I- I’m not sure- I don't know how long she was gone. It felt like an eternity. All I could do was cry and scream."

_You know, like now._

Leah's expression is soft, sympathetic. "That must have been awful."

Loki ought to be strong; to tell her no, it's nothing. It's fine.

Except it isn't, and now he can't stop crying. "It was," he admits, in a tiny voice. "It was horrible."

"What happened when she came back inside and found you?"

He frowns, concentrating hard. "This sounds terrible," he apologizes, because he's such a failure at being human, "but I- I just don’t know."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disordered thinking is a many-splendored thing.

"Just- just _don't even_ ," Loki snarls as Thor backs away with both hands held high. "Just leave me the fuck alone." He springs up out of the armchair, right into Thor's face, and shoves his brother aside as he stomps out of the room.

"What the _hell_ , Loki," Thor calls after him, sounding more startled – more _hurt_ \- than angry. "I was just joking."

The worst part: His brother probably _was_ just goofing around. As usual, he's overreacted and made a colossal mess out of- of everything. He is never going to be able to have a normal relationship with anyone, not fucking ever.

Loki slams the bedroom door behind himself, as hard as he can. Even the windows rattle. Instead of launching himself onto the bed, though, he stalks over to the closet and yanks its door open. He makes his way in - ducking beneath the hanging things, pulling the door closed again - and sinks to the floor.

It’s fucking pitiful, sure, but it’s also dark and safe. Loki curls up in the mess of dirty laundry that serves Thor in lieu of a hamper, or a laundry basket, and lies there gasping for air. Sharp burning behind his eyeballs notwithstanding, he finds he's even too worked up to cry.

~

This whole sordid downward spiral came into being a few days ago, around the point where Loki got homework.

~

_Be sure and start with something small,_ Leah had suggested. _Nothing emotionally weighty, nothing that has a lot of meaning to you. As you find things of that sort getting easier,_ she'd explained, paralleling the reading material she'd sent him earlier in the week, _you can start moving up to the bigger challenges. And at first,_ she'd cautioned, watching him closely as though she didn’t trust him to do this properly, _stick to people whose opinions you don't have any reason to really value._

He remembers nodding. He also remembers how simple it all sounded at the time.

It isn't.

~~~~~

**Two days ago:**

"Can you hand me the stapler," Loki asks the short woman standing next to him. They've been sent off to dig around in the resource room for half an hour before their next classroom session, with the intention of finding short articles to discuss later. He's never worked with this woman in any of his DBT classes, or in group; he's seen her around, sure, but has never had a conversation that lasted longer than "hi" with her. Not even once.

She's the perfect example of someone whose opinion is has pretty much no meaning to him whatsoever.

Which is why it's ridiculous - and ridiculously embarrassing - that his face is burning hot and his heart is racing.

"Um," - she looks around for the stapler, startled out of her reading daze, and then pushes it along the counter towards him - "sure. Here."

"Thanks," he mutters. She's gone right back to her reading, without even looking at him. She doesn't nod, or respond.

He feels a little like he's been slapped, which is silly considering how terrified he’d been about having to face her reaction. After all that, she really didn’t react at all; she simply did what he asked, with a minimum of fuss.

Still, he feels a little hurt. A lot hurt. She didn't seem invested in helping him at all. _It was a stapler, stupid_ , he reminds himself. _Plus, it's not like she's your friend. Why on earth do you even care?_

He's not sure if the whole encounter counts as success or failure.

~

**Yesterday:**

Loki knows he’s in a bit of a mood; he’s not entirely certain why.

"Have you tried what we discussed” Leah asks after the usual unpleasantries are out of the way. “About asking for things, and starting small?”

"My exposure ladder," Loki announces a little snootily, to showcase the fact that he's done the assigned reading. "Yes, I had a girl pass me the stapler yesterday.”

"And how did you feel about it?" She isn't pushing, really - just asking - but Loki can feel himself tensing. In the cold light of a new day his reaction to the whole thing seems childish and silly. Not important. Hardly _noteworthy._

"It went fine. It was nothing," he assures her.

She peers at him a little strangely, just enough to show him he's off his game, and then (re-)asks the question a couple of subtly different ways. But Loki is a grown-up, and grown-ups ask for staplers without a second thought. He's wasted far too much brainpower on this already. That, and he prides himself in being very hard to trip up. "Seriously," he lies - except coming to realizations and changing your mind aren't the same as lying, really, are they? - "it really was nothing. It was completely fine."

~

Sif is over for pizza. They're watching a cartoon in German, sans subtitles, just because they can. Not even one of them speaks German, so the whole thing makes little sense, but the art is pretty and something about having no idea what’s going on is surprisingly relaxing.

She's sitting at one end of the sofa, eating something nasty with broccoli and shriveled mushrooms. Thor is at the other end, digging into the hot wings with the mindless, sloppy gusto of a zombie on a brain. Mostly-vegan here, carrion eater there.

He's down on the floor between them, slumped a little against Thor's solid calf. As befits the middleman, he has eaten a nice, normal slice of cheese pizza and is still gnawing his way slowly through the crust. It's a little burnt; his taste buds could use a breather.

Loki picks his target. Maybe he cares a little more about what Sif thinks of him than Leah would recommend, sure, but just now – after watching them eat for a few minutes - he's not exactly putting either one of them up on a polished marble fucking pedestal.

He decides to give it a try.

"Siffy," he asks sweetly, "can you grab me one piece of pepperoni? Not a slice of the pizza,” he clarifies, “just one little round." He opens his mouth and waggles his tongue suggestively.

"Gross, baby," she complains. "Seriously? You're going to make me touch revolting, slimy, _orange_ mystery meat? Not to mention how I’ll end up with my fingers stinking all night?"

Loki grins, showing alllll his teeth. "I'll make it worth your while, I promise."

She snorts. He opens his mouth again, and she delicately deposits a single crispy sliver of pepperoni halfway up his tongue.

"Mm," he hums, deftly tucking the pepperoni inside one cheek and closing his lips around her fingers.

"Alright already," she exclaims as he wraps his tongue around first one finger and then other, scrubbing away any lingering grease. "Loki!"

Thor knees him gently in the back of the head. "Knock it off, pervert."

"It's okay," Sif says, laughing, as she takes her hand back. She wipes her fingers on her jeans. "It's certainly better than a smelly old _moist towelette_ ," she tells Thor, still laughing as she waves the little printed foil packet in the air.

They all laugh with her, easily. Happily.

This one feels like a solid win. Not so difficult after all. He’s catching on.

~

**Five minutes ago, or maybe a little less:**

He can do this, he knows he can. It's not difficult, after all. In fact, it's nothing. There is no reason to be this afraid. There’s no reason to be _any_ amount of afraid.

_Nothing bad is going to happen._

The two of them have been sitting around in here for half an hour, Loki not-really-watching the news and Thor flipping through the Legal Review. They'll eat dinner eventually; neither of them seems to be starved enough yet to bother.

_Just get it over with_ , Loki orders himself for the gazillionth time. When did he become such a fucking pansy?

Don't answer that.

He takes a deep breath, then clears his throat. He can feel his heart pounding half out of his chest, the way it does right before- right before he makes regrettable choices involving the unfortunate combination of his own flesh and various sharp objects. "Hey, Thor, can you get me a ginger ale?"

Thor snorts. He looks over at Loki, grinning. "Why? Since when are _your_ legs broken?"

~

Sometimes Loki swears his own temper is a living thing. Not one that particularly likes him, either.

Of course, it isn’t like he blames it.

~~~~~

“Loki? Baby? I’m going to get some dinner. Do you want something?” Thor’s voice is muffled, coming to Loki as it is through two doors, a couple of t-shirts, and something small and rumpled that smells like sweaty balls.

“No,” Loki yells without moving, even though he’s actually hungry enough to eat socks now. Part of him is absolutely mortified to think that Thor might catch him in here; the rest wants to be found looking as pitiful as humanly possible.

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble,” Thor calls through the door. Through the door _s_. Because someone _is_ counting.

“I’m not hungry,” Loki lies, grumpily.

And then it hits him, like a ton of bricks. A ton of garbage. A ton of smelly, rotting shit.

_His brother has just done exactly what he’s been endlessly wanting – read his twisted little mind and offered the precise thing he wanted and needed, before he even knew he needed it – and, instead of being grateful (fuck that, instead of being polite), he’s gone and acted like a complete and utter asshole._

_No wonder everyone hates you,_ he tells himself angrily, and then bursts into loud, wracking sobs.

Because, you know, drama fixes everything.

~

“Baby? Are you okay?” Loki stifles his sobbing almost as soon as he hears the door creak, but it’s _accidentallyonpurpose_ not quite fast enough. His brother comes right to the closet door and whips it open, in the process catching him in the middle of one last wet hiccup.

“Loki,” Thor says as he drops to a crouch, sounding for all the world like his baby brother burrowed deep in the dirty laundry is the very saddest thing he’s ever seen.

“What,” Loki asks. He shifts until he’s mostly sitting, all the while glaring balefully at Thor. 

It’s impossible to maintain anything remotely approaching dignity when you’re soaked and snotty and draped in someone’s dirty jockstrap. Loki knows that, he does, but no one is ever going to be able to fault him for trying.

“Baby,” Thor says, reaching out to pluck the jockstrap off his head, “you’re scaring me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki the Cowardly has a long conversation with his therapist.

“Whoever taught you this shit was easy lied,” Loki complains to Leah. He laughs (at himself, maybe; at _something_ ) and it comes out sounding (justifiably) bitter and sardonic. “Either that, or I just really suck at it.” He’s not even quite sure which explanation he wants to hear; that he’s awful at asking for things, or that this is really, really hard. Actually, he wants to hear both. Both, and neither. Because _that’s_ possible.

“Oh, it’s not easy,” she says. “If I gave you that impression, I apologize. It’s a very difficult thing to do, especially when you’re stuck learning it for the first time as an adult.” She smiles ever-so-slightly, the corners of her mouth just twitching up, the way she always does when she’s about to give him a hard time about something. He braces himself for whatever’s coming; _something_ undoubtedly is.

Nothing that happens in this world is ever entirely coincidental.

“But it’s really about the process anyway,” she continues, and he’s glad he’s already bracing. Wherever there’s _process_ , there’s a distinct lack of _comfortable Loki_. “What’s important,” Leah goes on to explain, “is that you learn to cope with your feelings. It doesn’t really matter, early on in particular, what your actual outcomes might be. There isn’t any way, after all, to succeed or fail.”

He smirks; he finds this particular line of reasoning annoying, and he’s sure his face shows it. “That sounds like what teachers tell parents when their children aren’t- aren’t shining stars. Don’t patronize me.”

Leah’s forehead folds into a small frown. “This scares you, doesn’t it,” she asks.

And that catches him off-guard completely. “Yes,” he blurts out without thinking, and that’s even more annoying. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Is there something you would rather spend your hour discussing instead?” It sounds like a genuine question, it does, but he knows better.

And – either way - of course there isn’t. He exhales loudly, halfway between a sigh and a raspy growl. “I just hate this. I suck at it. I hate sucking at things.”

“I know you do.” She sets her pen down. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Why does something always have to have happened,” he whines, his question being in fact largely rhetorical. Leah’s a lot better at reading his moods than Thor is. Than Loki himself is, even, much of the time. “I guess,” he says, without bothering to give her a chance to answer. “Okay. I tried to ask Thor for something. It didn’t go well. I ended up falling asleep in his underwear.” He smiles as he says it, even though everything about it was – and still feels - more painful than funny.

Leah laughs. She probably means to laugh _with_ him, only he’s not laughing. “I’m sorry,” she says immediately, “I don’t mean to make light of anything you’re saying. But that’s a rather odd plot summary.” He nods; she’s right. It’s easier to obfuscate the details than it is to confront whole thing head-on. “Let’s come back to this particular piece of the story, though. Can we first devote a little more time to the first rung on your ladder; the part with the stapler?”

“No,” he says – snippy, belligerent; much the way most people would say _duh._ \- “We can’t. We talked about that already.”

“Yes, we did,” she agrees, “but I’m not sure we really talked about it _properly_.” She looks at him expectantly; after a good, uncomfortable thirty seconds he nods. As much as he hates this, she does seem to know what’s good for him. Better than he does, for sure. “Tell me again,” she directs, once he’s nodded. “How do you feel like that went?”

Loki thinks back to the woman at the counter; to the stapler she’d passed him, to the way her utter disinterest had _hurt_. To the way he’d come into therapy the following day, eager to please rather than ready to work, and – when asked about his efforts – lied and minimized.

And just look how well _that_ worked out.

“Mixed, I guess,” he admits this time. “Like I said before, I did get the thing I asked for. That said, the _way_ I got it didn’t end up sitting so well with me.” He splays his fingers out across his thighs and carefully studies his nails, stalling for- for time to make his way back to _feeling stable_ (which has, as usual deserted him for points- for points _elsewhere_ , if not entirely unknown). 

His hands look damned good; he’s taken a page out of Anna’s book this time and gone with a translucent onyx that looks solid black at first glance but is actually full of depth and character. 

It’s a funny choice, in retrospect, because to put it bluntly he’s pretty fucking sick of having _depth and character_.

“Do you feel like your experience didn’t measure up to your hopes,” Leah asks. “That’s pretty polish,” she adds, as he’s just started to panic his way through formulating an answer.

He feels abruptly naked, to the point where he _really_ has to fight hard not to ball his fingers into fists; not to cross his arms and shove his hands into his armpits. It has nothing to do with her compliment, and everything to do with her question; he knows that, he does, so he fights his reaction and wins. This time.

Loki knows his life is already peppered with far too many mistaken impressions. Some of them serve him well; most of them don’t. It’s not a good time, or a good place, to be heaping a few more on the pile.

On the pyre, either.

He sighs, and it’s more like a proper sigh this time. “This is stupid. Seriously. When I got my stapler, I felt… unappreciated. The woman I’d asked didn’t even look at me.”

“Can you put yourself back in the moment,” Leah asks, and then waits as he nods and then does so. “If she’d made a big fuss,” she goes on at last, “ in a good way, how do you think that might have felt?”

He tries to feel it, for the better part of a minute. “Still mixed,” he admits. “It would have been exciting to be noticed, but I would have felt weird about it, too.” He shivers. “Weird, and like I’d been angling for it. Like it was me, and not her.” Loki shakes his head back and forth, back and forth. “I’m such a mess.” Case in point: He can’t decide if he should laugh or cry. Or scream.

Probably not scream. Is that progress?

“It’s okay to feel conflicted,” she tells him, for far from the first time. “Emotions aren’t logical, and they aren’t right or wrong. They-.”

“-just are,” he finishes for her. “I know, I know. I do listen,” he insists. “I do. But it’s one thing to hear it and another to endure it.”

“It sure is,” Leah agrees. “All I can tell you is that, like anything else, with practice it gets more tolerable.” She doesn’t choose _easier_ this time, which he greatly appreciates. “Now,” she continues, “was Thor your next step, or did you try something else in between?”

Loki shifts. And then shifts again, because sliding down has given him the worst wedgie imaginable. “Sorry,” he offers as he tugs frantically at his pants. “I’m so classy. No, I tried something in between; I asked our friend Sif for a piece of pepperoni.” He smiles sheepishly. “You probably won’t believe me, not after last time, but that actually _did_ go fine.” He watches her for a few seconds; surprisingly, she actually doesn’t look like she’s writing him off as a liar. He wouldn’t be nearly so generous himself.

“Good,” she says, in fact, which is a whole lot easier to handle than anything he expected. “I’m glad to hear that. Can you identify what about it made that experience different?”

“I felt comfortable- hamming it up with her, I guess you could say,” he tells Leah. “I could be the center of attention in a mutually-appealing manner,” he explains, “which sounds weird, I suppose. But Sif knows the worst of me and likes me anyway, and that made everything so much more comfortable.”

Leah smiles, and it’s more like one of Loki’s smiles… to the point where he’s struck by how odd it is to see his expression on someone else’s face. “There’s a lesson in there,” she says, still smiling, “but I think I’ll leave you to figure that one out for yourself.”

“Yes, I know,” he agrees, because he does. They’ve already talked quite a bit about how his whole _if you knew me, you would hate me_ shtick is perhaps not quite as broadly applicable as he likes to insist it is. “And thank you for not rubbing my nose in it.”

“You’re welcome. Now, tell me; what didn’t go so well with Thor?”

It’s easier somehow, after they’ve taken such a roundabout route back to it. “I asked him to get me a beverage,” Loki says, matter-of-factly. “He gave me shit about it, although he probably just thinks he was being funny. It sucked, I hid.” He slaps his hands together as though he’s brushing them clean. “Done and done.”

“Is it fair of me to assume you haven’t shared with him that you’re working on this particular skill,” she asks, rather than going straight for what he’s just said, and that comes as more of a relief than it probably should, “or that you’ve been assigned this homework?”

“No,” he tells her. “I mean, I haven’t told him. I suppose that’s _yes_ to your original question.” He lets his head fall back against the chair cushion. And groans. “If I could do that, I don’t think I would need to complete this homework to start with.”

“I understand why it’s difficult,” Leah says, “I do, but it would probably help for him to know the rules have changed. The two of you have a long-,”

“-and storied,” Loki cuts in, because he knows exactly where she’s going and sometimes he has to remind people he can beat them there. “Don’t forget _storied_.”

They both laugh, and if he _hadn’t_ really beat her there she wisely doesn’t let on. “Long and _storied_ history,” she confirms, “and some of what may once have been _inside jokes_ will be hurtful now.” She looks solemn and a bit concerned, and Loki feels- awkward. Ashamed. “People often use little bits of shared history - things of that nature - to reinforce bonds with their friends and family,” she explains, “and then they’re confused when what used to work backfires.”

He nods, slowly. Put that way it does make sense. Of course, that just means he feels extra-stupid for having crawled into Thor’s (literal) dirty laundry.

“If you don’t feel up to cluing him in yourself,” Leah suggests, “could you ask a friend – Sif, maybe? – to do it?

That’s not a bad idea, probably, but he can’t imagine himself going through with it. He shrugs.

She smiles. “That right there bore an uncanny resemblance to _Leah, are you crazy_ , didn’t it? I’ll tell you what,” she offers, “just think about it for me, and we’ll talk about it next time.”

That, Loki can do. “Okay, okay,” he concedes, with a little more drama than is probably strictly necessary. “And oh, hey, would you look at the time?”

She stands as he does, both of them laughing. “You’ll pick this up faster than you think,” she tells him. “You will.”

At least one of them thinks so.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sif and Loki have a nice chat.
> 
>  
> 
> _This one is a bit short, sorry - real life, plus it just wanted to stop here._

"He's not awesome at that sort of thing, you know," Sif says, scraping a piece of pita along one side of the stupendous mountain of tabbouleh overflowing the plate between them. "It's nothing about you, personally." Loki makes a face and she laughs. "Out here in the real world, I mean," she adds, still laughing, "not in the sad little universe inside your head."

Loki frowns. Okay, pouts, even, if anyone is getting right down to specifics. "He's known me since I was a _baby_ , Sif. A fucking baby. Wouldn't you think, in allll that time," he asks, gesturing a bit messily with his own hunk of pita, "he might have learned at least a few small things about what makes his _dearly beloved_ tick?"

He's exaggerating, sure. Siffy can take it.

Sif rolls her eyes. "Your brother is a bit- well, it's pretty much like dating a steamroller, no?" She's the voice of wisdom; she _was_ there first, after all. "He may not mean to, sure, but he goes merrily about his business and blithely crushes everything in his path. Whereas you," she says, pointing at Loki with a parsley-flecked index finger, "you have always been the finesse player."

"Ah-ah," he scolds, playfully, because he harbors a certain fondness for going around in circles… not to mention how pretty much anything beats talking about the actual topic under discussion. "Now you're mixing sports into your large earthmoving apparatus metaphors. Be consistent,” he instructs, waggling a finger in her face. “In terms of commercial roadway equipment, what would I be?"

She snickers. "A jackhammer," she tells him, without missing a single beat.

Loki huffs. That was _too_ smooth a comeback. "I hardly see-."

"No no," she interrupts, "think about it: You destroy things slowly by chipping away at them and you make _so much noise_ doing it."

She's not wrong. Actually, she’s so right it stings.

"I think your therapist has a good point, though," she says, at once smoothing things over and looping back around to exactly the point he's been studiously avoiding. "Thor simply isn't going to pick up on what you're doing, not on his own. Not reliably, at any rate," she amends, "and that's probably-."

"-worse than nothing," Loki finishes. "I know, I know." He pops a big pinch of tabbouleh into his mouth and chews it slowly. "It's just-,” he goes on after he’s swallowed the majority of it, “I can't imagine myself sitting him down and saying _I'm learning to use my words, because I'm three, and I need you to not tease me about it._ Because Thor is five," he tells her, "and teasing Baby Loki is what he lives for." He grimaces. “I’d just be heaping more fuel on the fire.”

Sif reaches out to wipe Loki's lip with her thumb and offers him the bits of lemony couscous to lick. From anyone else it would be too intimate a gesture, but she and Loki are far more like _siblings_ than he and Thor will ever be.

Nature sure got the three of them all the fuck wrong somehow.

She frowns a little as he picks up another scoop. "Do you think he's doing this on purpose, to hurt you?"

He snorts. "When he wants to do that, trust me, everybody knows. Well, it's _true_ ," he insists as she winces. "Surely we don't need to dance around it."

"Oh, right, because you never dance around anything," she shoots back. "Now, if you’re done changing the subject, how about you go out on a limb and try giving me an actual honest answer to my question?"

"That's what I love most about you," he teases her instead. "You're never afraid to call a spade a-."

"Loki," she growls, because even the Great and Wondrous Lady Sif only has so much patience, "just stop. Seriously."

He rakes his hair back with both hands, remembering only when the corners of her eyes crinkle that his fingers are - well, _were_ \- still covered with parsley and lemon and oil. "Oops," he exclaims, laughing at her expression. "Don't look like that. It's by far not the worst thing I've put in there. Okay okay okay," he goes on as she opens her mouth to call him out on his stalling yet again. "No, intellectually, I don't think he does it on purpose." He _doesn't_ think it; he feels it. "It's just a shorthand we've developed over the years."

She nods. "One that contains no symbols suitable for addressing the current situation."

“Pretty much.” Lok nods in return. “And I- I don’t _want_ to make things strained and awkward between us. I don’t want to be all weird about everything. Don’t you dare laugh,” he orders; he can see from her face she’s about to. “Only I’m allowed to make fun of things like that about me.” He takes a big gulp of air and sighs, good and long and loud. “So, what do I do?”

“Do you want me to talk to him instead,” she asks. “I can, and I will. Just say the word.”

He’s still not sure how he feels about that whole idea… which he’s just about to try his hand at explaining to her when his phone chirps.

_where r u?_

Speak of the devil.

“Thor,” he tells Sif, because she’s peering at him across the table.

_getting middle-eastern with sif,_ he texts his brother, _cos u were l8_. Which Thor is, without – yet again – bothering to call or anything. Still, it’s been nice to get out of the apartment with Sif and Loki is, consequently, feeling unusually magnanimous. There’s no reason to be a dick about it. _bring u somethg_ , he nicely offers instead.

_just lving wk,_ his brother responds. _meet u there?_

~

Thor bursts through the door, big and loud and golden, and takes the entire place over. He gives Loki a wet smooch on the forehead, hugs Sif hard enough to make her squeak, cheerfully greets their waiter, waves to the one of the guys in the kitchen, chats up the owner, and generally runs roughshod over the nice quiet ambiance the two of them had been enjoying previously.

Normally, everything about it would piss him off, but this time Loki just remembers what Sif had said – about steamrollers – and smiles. He even manages to laugh for real when, after finally sitting the fuck down (not before scraping a third chair loudly across the tile, of course), Thor takes a close look at him and asks “Loki, is that _food_ in your hair?”

~

Sif has a real gift. By the end of their dinner, when they’re carefully savoring the last dregs of their Turkish coffee and all the while trying their best not to eat the grounds, she’s somehow managed to get both of them to agree to _lay off the sarcasm for a while, since the two of you claim you’re trying to learn to treat one another better._

Privately, Loki doesn’t see that working out so well. But she’s done him a huge favor, yet again, so he’s probably obligated somehow to swallow his- his _whatever_ and give it a try.


End file.
